Red Zone

by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  Her eyes darkened to midnight blue. “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  …

  Friday didn’t want to think about a future she couldn’t change. She’d known the chance she took when she’d poisoned herself. What she hadn’t known was that a man as wonderful as Luke Boudreaux would come into her life. She’d thought she would die alone, with no one in her life to regret leaving. She’d been wrong. If she could have one wish granted, one miracle, it would be to stay with this man. To live a long and full life in his arms. But wishing was foolish. And miracles were myth.

  It was best to deal with reality, rather than unrealistic hope. And reality told her she had just over two hours to spend with Luke Boudreaux. Two hours to touch him. Two hours to love him. She ran her hands up his chest to his shoulders, feeling the firm muscle beneath the smooth, warm skin. He was a living sculpture. A study in perfection that would have been at home in any ancient art collection.

  Slowly, keeping her eyes on his, she leaned in and bit his pec, just above the nipple. She felt the tension of the muscle under her teeth and heard him gasp. Strong hands threaded into her hair, holding her to him. Empowered by his reaction, she soothed the bite with her tongue before licking her way to his tiny nipple. Male nipples were such odd things, completely purposeless, yet strangely compelling.

  “You’re driftin’ again.” She felt the sound rumble through his chest and into her lips. “You’d better not be planning on making my nipples strawberry flavored.”

  She couldn’t help but smile against his skin. “I like your taste just fine.”

  His hold tightened in her hair. “You sure? Maybe you should sample some more before you decide.”

  Delighting in him, she did exactly that. Kissing and licking and biting her way down his stomach to the firm length jutting toward her.

  He tugged at her hair again, angling her head to make her look up at him. “You taste my cock, bébé, and this is gonna be over before it starts.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him. “And here I thought you had more stamina than that.”

  “Smart-ass,” he grumbled, then groaned as she sucked the head of his shaft into her mouth. She liked the taste, but it could definitely be improved with chocolate. If she’d had more time, she would have played with his genetics. Or, at the very least, bought a bottle of chocolate sauce.

  “That’s it.” His hands were under her arms and hauling her up to kneel facing him. “There’s too much thinking goin’ on in that head. Time for the expert to take over.”

  “Expert, huh? That must be one of those levels you were talking about on the jet. Tell me, how am I going to make advanced level if you keep taking over? I need the practice.”

  The words landed between them like a lead balloon. There would be no practice. Not for her.

  “Fuck!” Striker clasped the back of her head and slammed his lips down on hers.

  The kiss stole her breath along with her sanity. And then there wasn’t any space to think. Only feel.

  His arms were around her, holding her tight. The heat from his skin penetrated hers, making her warm where she’d always felt cold. Firm hands brushed over sensitive skin. The scent of musk and earth filled her senses. The taste of passion made her mouth water. He kissed her until her lips felt bruised, and then he lowered her to her back on their makeshift bed. The concrete floor was hard beneath the pallet of blankets, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the man above her.

  He moved over her, touching, kissing, tasting, biting, fingers teasing her nipples while he nibbled at her throat. Her body pressed up into his. Her leg hooked over his hip. She felt herself open for him. Felt his hard length against her. Needed him inside her.

  She moaned—a begging sound, filled with longing. His teeth grazed her nipple in reply. His other hand massaging her free breast.

  “I need you, Striker.” She didn’t know if she whispered. She was past caring who heard them. All she cared about was wanting him. Needing him.

  “Luke. Call me by my name.” And then he sucked her nipple hard.

  “Luke!” It was a groan. A demand. A plea.

  “That’s it, bébé. So fucking gorgeous. I could spend hours teasing these beautiful breasts of yours. Hours.”

  She heard it in his voice. The pain he couldn’t hide it. The agony of knowing they didn’t have hours. She clasped his head and held him tight against her. Could he feel her heart beat? Did he know it was only for him?

  She was panting now, climbing higher with every teasing, torturous touch. “I need…”

  “I know what you need, bébé. I bet I could make you come just from playing with your breasts. You’re sensitive for me, aren’t you, chère?” That low drawl of his would be enough to make her climax. She didn’t even need his touch.

  “Luke.” It was agreement and complaint. He drove her past desperation. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t breathe.

  His lips moved lower. Her legs opened for him, and her hips arched.

  She felt his chuckle as he kissed her inner thigh. “Demanding little kitten. You needing petting, bébé? You gonna purr for me?”

  She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think. She just wanted. Needed. Desperately. And he didn’t make her wait. His intimate kiss was slow and languorous, taking his time as he tasted and teased her.

  “Please, please, please, please…” Her fingernails pressed into his shoulders, and she knew she’d left marks. There was no stopping the primal thrill she felt at leaving her mark on the man. She wanted to brand her name on his soul. Mark him for eternity as hers. Only hers.

  “Please!”

  He rumbled against the little bundle of nerves, making her wail. Fingers slipped inside of her, seeking that secret spot she’d only ever heard about. And then he stroked her as he licked around her clit. She didn’t think it was possible to climb higher, but she did. She soared high on the tension of ecstasy, desperate for the snap of release only he could give her, the one that would tip her over and make her free fall.

  “You gonna come for me, bébé?”

  Answering was an impossibility.

  “Yeah, you’re gonna explode for me.” He sucked her clit hard and everything stopped, snapped, and detonated.

  She fell back to earth in amongst a meteor shower. Lights flashed around her as she fell, weightless, through space. It was a timeless falling, and she never wanted it to end. The closer to earth she came, the more she became aware of Striker’s weight covering her. His hand on her cheek was a brand. His lips against hers were slow and sensual and delicious. She clasped his waist as she fought to open her eyes. Her eyelids were so heavy, but she didn’t want to miss a second of anything at all to do with Luke Boudreaux.

  His thick shaft pressed into her as she lifted her hips in welcome.

  “You feel good.” His voice was a rasp. “Never felt anything this good.”

  Slowly, deliberately, he entered her fully. She wrapped her legs around his hips, holding him to her the only way she could. They were trapped in one another’s gaze. The need to keep him forever was a physical thing. She could almost feel it reaching out to him, tendrils intended to bind him to her for eternity.

  “Mine,” he whispered.

  “Mine,” she answered.

  She saw it then, in the depths of his eyes, the possibility of everything she’d ever wanted. And it was all just out of reach.

  His movements were slow, deliberate, as though he didn’t want their joining to end. Their mouths tangled in a kiss that was heavy with meaning. Each taste was a feeling too deep to express in words. Each touch of lips to lips was a promise that couldn’t be kept. Each teasing bite was a reprimand for a future filled with loss.

  Friday felt tears on her cheeks as she clung to him and realized they weren’t only hers. One lone tear had rolled down his face to fall and mingle with hers. He reached up, wiped his face, groaned, and then surged into her. Her throat began to ache with repressed sobs. His kisses
left her mouth and made their way across her cheek to her ear.

  “I love you,” his voice was hoarse.

  Her tears fell faster, as her body soared higher under his touch.

  “It will always be you,” he whispered. “Only you.”

  A sob escaped her, and his mouth was there to capture it. She wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. She wanted to beat something, anything, to release the anger at leaving this man. Her man. Instead, she fought the anguish back and pushed her love for him outward. She pushed it through her fingers as they clung to him. Through her lips as she kissed him, taking his taste deep inside of her where it would always live.

  “I love you, Luke Boudreaux,” she said against his lips and watched as he swallowed, taking her declaration into him, making her a part of him in a way. Maybe, just maybe, she would live on in this man, a part of his heart, his soul. Forever.

  Their kiss became desperate; their movements, frantic with need. Together, they shattered. And when they reformed, they did it as one. For always.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “What the hell am I looking at?” Mace said into the comm unit strapped around his throat.

  The team was in the hills, south of the location marked by Striker’s tracker. They should have been looking out over the built-up suburbs of La Paz. Instead, they were staring at a gash in the landscape and a shit ton of digging equipment.

  “Mining,” was Sandi’s droll reply.

  “The images you’re sending me don’t match up to the ones I’m getting through the satellite feed,” Hunter said over the comm.

  “Secret mining,” Sandi amended.

  Hunter typed in the background. “I’m checking all records, but there are no official mining operations running in the south of the city.”

  “I don’t think they would have hidden it if it’d been legitimate. Just sayin’,” Sandi said.

  “Not helping.” Mace frowned at his sister.

  “What?” She shrugged at him. “Somebody needs to educate the rookie.”

  “The rookie is over a hundred years old,” Hunter said.

  “And still ignorant.” Sandi smiled mischievously at her brother. “That must chafe.”

  Mace wasn’t amused. “Could you two focus for a minute? Has the signal from the tracker moved?”

  “Nope. It’s still at the coordinates I sent you.”

  He hit a button on his binoculars, and a coordinate grid came up, superimposed over the area in front of him. “He’s in the third building from the left, beside the gate.”

  “The one that’s surrounded by guards?” Ignacio Morales, the leader of the other half of their team, asked. His people were positioned two streets up from the main gate.

  “Yeah.”

  “I can deal with the guards at the gate,” Gray said over the comm.

  There were at least ten heavily-armed guards at the entrance, with about a dozen more stationed close to it. Going in alone was a suicide mission.

  “No.” They weren’t going to lose anyone on this mission. Especially someone who was practically begging to die. “We go in from the side, over the fence. We make this a snatch and grab, not a full-out war.”

  “Still too many armed guys wandering about,” Sandi said. “One way or the other, we’re gonna take fire. Unless, maybe, we wait ’til dark and move then.”

  The weight of her words landed heavily on all of them. Nobody argued that they rush in there to save Friday. It was almost six. They all knew she was already gone.

  “Eh, boss?” Ignacio said. “I found out who’s running the mine. They aren’t exactly hiding it; there’s a company logo plastered to one of the crates they’re unloading. I’m sending the coordinates.”

  When they came through, the team shifted their binoculars to the building.

  Gray let out a low whistle. “CommTECH.” The word dripped with disgust.

  “This shit is illegal,” Ignacio said.

  “I don’t think they care,” Sandi said.

  Things had just gotten a whole lot more urgent. “No waiting until dark,” Mace said. “We need to get him out of there fast.”

  “I have grenades,” Jeremiah said cheerfully into the silence. “I say we blow the gate sky high and ride out of there with our boy.”

  “We can sneak along the fence and plant timed explosions,” Ignacio added. “Attack on several fronts at the same time. Take out as many of them as we can.”

  It was as good a plan as any. “Ignacio, Gray, set charges. Jeremiah, get the cars ready and arm everybody. We go in with two vehicles. First car lays down cover, the second finds Striker.” There was agreement. Mace checked the time. “Thirty minutes to set up charges, then we move.”

  He hoped Striker was still in one piece when they got to him—otherwise, they would have to burn down the mine and everything in it to prevent their secrets getting out.

  Chapter Forty

  Friday fell asleep as soon as they’d finished making love. Striker knew she wouldn’t wake up again. Her time had run out. Part of him was relieved, for her sake, that she wouldn’t wake. He didn’t know what the poison would do to her, now that it was active, and he didn’t want her to experience any more pain. This was better, he assured himself. She could sleep through it. That was good, right?

  No. Nothing about this situation was good. Nothing.

  He sat with his back to the wall, the blanket tent covering them and the woman he loved in his lap. One arm was wrapped tight around her, the other pressed flat over her heart, counting the steady beats. They were strong, her breaths even. There was no visible change—yet. Her lips were still the palest pink. Her skin was still warm. Only the darkening circles under her eyes indicated something was very wrong.

  He’d dressed her in his T-shirt because he didn’t want anyone to see her naked. Someone was bound to check on them at some point, especially when they found Kane Duggan dead.

  He’d dressed in his jeans and boots, ready to run with her if the occasion allowed. And he hoped it did. He wanted to take her back to the Red Zone. He wanted her in his bed. He didn’t know how long the poison took to work, and he wanted her somewhere safe. Somewhere he could watch over her. Somewhere with people who cared whether she lived or died. He wanted to take her home, to mourn her.

  “Damn it.” His eyes stung, and he blinked them hard. He needed to focus. He needed to watch over his woman.

  She’s just sleeping, the diamondback said.

  Yeah, buddy, she’s just sleeping. He swallowed the knot in his throat.

  We take care of her. His reptile snapped free of his body without being called, something Striker didn’t like one bit. It meant he didn’t have as much control over the diamondback as he’d thought.

  The rattler slid under Friday’s shirt and curled around her.

  Warm here. The diamondback almost purred the words. Don’t worry. I take care of her.

  It was impossible to reply. Instead, he brushed Friday’s silken blond hair from her forehead. She was so beautiful, inside and out. Four days. He’d only had four days with her.

  “This is bullshit!” He roared the words, hearing them echo off the walls.

  Everyone he loved had been taken from him. Three years earlier he’d woken up to find out his family had been dead for decades. Now this. Friday. The only woman he’d ever loved. More than that—she felt like the only woman he ever would love. She felt like she belonged with him.

  She does. She belongs to us.

  What will we do when…? He couldn’t finish the sentence. Not even as a silent whisper to his other half.

  She just sleeping.

  Pulling her closer, he willed it to be true. Willed her to wake and laugh with him again. He poured the full force of his personality into his desire, thinking that maybe his will alone could keep her with him. How could someone completely change his life in just four days? And she had. She’d turned it upside down. He was a different man with Friday. One he liked. She gave him something to live
for in this new and strange world. Something other than the fear of being discovered, or the drive to protect his team.

  She gave him hope.

  Hope of a future filled with love. How was he going to live when she took that hope with her? He would be half a man, because she had the rest of his soul tucked deep inside of her.

  “I love you so fucking much,” he whispered. “Don’ leave me, bébé. Please don’ leave me. I’ll do anything. Just don’ leave me.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Please, God, please.”

  He’d never felt as helpless in his life. He couldn’t save her. He couldn’t do anything for her except hold her and love her. And beg. “God, please…”

  He’d do anything to keep her there. “Maman told me you did miracles, God, please…”

  A shuddering blast made the earth rock beneath him. His head snapped up. He held Friday tighter. There was shouting, running. Another blast from farther away. Two more. This was no mine accident. His senses were sharp. Alert. He strained to listen, to make sense of the chaos. He heard tires squeal, and adrenaline surged through him. Gunfire. Another blast, this one much closer. The walls shook. He called to his diamondback, and the reptile returned to his skin.

  Striker pushed himself up the wall and out of the tent, until he stood with his woman in his arms. He waited. More gunfire. This time from inside the building. Another blast. It sounded like a grenade. Hope soared. His hold on Friday tightened. He heard running feet. Shots fired. Something slammed against his cell door.

  And then it swung open.

  And Mace walked in.

  Striker’s knees almost gave way.

  “About fucking time,” he snapped at his second-in-command as he strode toward the door.

  “Good to see you, too.” His eyes went to Friday.

  “She ain’t dead yet. We need to get back to base. Maybe there’s something Doc can do.”

  His best friend didn’t say anything, but he also couldn’t look Striker in the eye. He didn’t care if anyone thought his efforts were wasted. She wasn’t dead yet, and he was taking her home.

  “We got a car out front.”